From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1–11

by John Day

Publisher:

Bloomsbury

, 2013

Overview

The stories of Genesis 1–11 constitute one of the better known parts of the Old Testament, but their precise meaning and background still provide many debated questions for the modern interpreter. In this stimulating, learned, and readable collection of essays, which paves the way for his forthcoming ICC volume on these chapters, John Day attempts to provide definitive solutions to some of these questions. The topics he addresses include the background and interpretation of the seven-day priestly creation narrative, problems in the interpretation of the Garden of Eden story, the relation of Cain and the Kenites, the strange stories of the sons of God and daughters of men and of Noah’s drunkenness and the curse of Canaan, the precise ancient Near Eastern background of the flood story and the preceding genealogies, and the meaning and background of the story of the tower and city of Babel. Throughout this volume, John Day seeks to determine the original meaning of these stories in the light of their ancient Near Eastern background, and to determine how far this original meaning has been obscured by later interpretations.

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Contents

Top Highlights

“Overall, it is difficult to see why the Garden of Eden story should not be understood as one of sin and judgment, comparable to others which follow in Genesis 4–11. Indeed, it is the first one, resulting in the loss of Paradise. However, it is wrong to read into the story all the ideas contained in the later full-blown Augustinian concept of original sin, and within the Old Testament it clearly does not have the centrality that it later acquired in Christianity or even certain parts of Judaism at the turn of the era.” (Page 45)

“Traditionally in Christian theology they have been seen as immortal, their disobedience leading to their mortality” (Page 45)

“However, it seems going too far to describe it as an actual temple: there is no mention of the word ‘temple’ or equivalent term or of any building on the site, no allusion to an altar or other cultic appurtenances apart from the cherubim, and no reference to worshippers.” (Page 31)

“This number was seventy, for we know that there were deemed to be seventy nations (Gen. 10), and with the growth of absolute monotheism the seventy gods of the nations became seventy angels of the nations in 1 En. 89.59, 90.22–25 and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Deut. 32.8.” (Page 79)

“Secondly, in the Hebrew Bible the verb bārāʾ occurs parallel with the verbs ʿāśâ, ‘make’, and yāṣar, ‘form’ (cf. Isa. 45:7).” (Page 6)

Product Details

• Title: From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1–11
• Author: John Day
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Print Publication Date: 2013
• Logos Release Date: 2014
• Pages: 208
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Bible. O.T. Genesis 1-11 › Criticism, interpretation, etc
• ISBNs: 9780567664211, 056766421X
• Resource ID: LLS:FRCRTNBBL
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2023-03-02T22:05:50Z

About John Day

John Day is an English Old Testament scholar. He is Professor of Old Testament Studies in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford. He is the editor of In search of pre-exilic Israel and wrote God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea. He is also Fellow, Tutor in Theology, and Dean of Degrees at Lady Margaret Hall.